


I'll Protect You

by BloodMoonWitch



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Muriel is a soft good (boy)friend, brief mention of gun violence, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-12-01 22:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20917391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodMoonWitch/pseuds/BloodMoonWitch
Summary: Not gonna lie kinda forgot I wrote this like a month ago so I just edited it real quick and slapped it up here cause idk what else to do with itBasically this was just an excuse to write about a comforting big soft Muriel





	I'll Protect You

**Author's Note:**

> I always see people writing about their apprentices and I always enjoy those stories but I’ve never had the courage to write about my own but this story feels kinda personal so here we go (even tho lowkey his name is only mentioned like once lol I’m so brave) 
> 
> did this all really happen to me like five minutes ago and im using this to cope with the fact that any large city is a terrifying place to be in right now for a small country child like me? 
> 
> nooooooo

The city I lived in wasn't always the safest, and it wasn't like I didn't know this. I'd been told every day since I left for college to stay away from the north side of town or to watch out for creeps in parking lots or not to talk to strangers, but all of that seemed like common sense. It was always in the back of my mind, but as I walked back to my car after a long day of classes, all I could think about was taking a nap. 

It was later in the evening, but the sun was still peaking over the horizon. I had just locked the door behind me and barely taken a few steps up the stairs that lead to the apartment I shared with my roommate Muriel, a friend of my boss Asra, before I heard them. 

Gunshots. And lots of them, erratic and shot off one after another. 

They were so loud, I swore they were coming from just down the street, but I couldn't be sure. 

We were used to loud neighbors, annoying thumping music from the apartment below us on Friday nights, shouting and arguing from the one across from us on Saturdays, the occasional fist fight in the front lawn, but that's what is to be expected from college students. 

But I'd never heard a gun firing before, and to here so many shots so close . . . 

"Damon?" I heard Muriel call out to me from where I was frozen midstep, petrified and lost in thought. _What was happening out there? That really was gunshots, right? It's too early for fireworks, so . . . Was someone hurt? Did someone die? What if I had still been outside? Would I have been caught in the middle of it all? What if- _

"Hey?" His voice is louder now, and when my head darts up I realize it's because he'd come to stand in front of me, worried green eyes peering into mine. Hesitantly, he brought his hand to rest on my shoulder, and I realized I had begun to shiver. His eyes look over my entire body, scanning for injuries or blood. He always did expect the worst. 

"Did you hear that?" I whispered, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears, scared and almost breathless. I couldn't tear my eyes away from his, I needed the strength I saw in them to help me keep from falling apart entirely, and for once he didn't seem to mind. 

"Yea, are you okay?" Muriel was always so caring, but in the little, subtle ways that were easy to miss. He would always make sure we ate dinner at a reasonable time, and that that dinner wasn't just leftover fries and a poptart. He started buying almond milk after I briefly told him once that I was lactose intolerant. He would bake cookies on Wednesdays afternoons because he knew I'd been in class all day and could usually use a pick-me-up. He carried me to bed on more than one occasion when I would fall asleep at my desk in the middle of working on a project. Muriel took better care of me than I did, and he was just my roomate. I thanked the gods almost every day that Asra had introduced us, and that he had practically shoved Muriel and I into the apartment that we now share, knowing that we both were on the hunt for somewhere that wasn't a dingy old dorm. Still, we'd only known each other for a little over a month now, but I felt like he was one of the closest friends I'd ever had. 

And gods, how I wished he would stop looking at me like that. 

I felt pathetic, all anxious and worked up over practically nothing, shaking and close to crying at just a sound. My heart was pounding in my chest, fighting to get out like a caged bird, but Muriel just kept looking at me with those big, green, worried puppy dog eyes.

”I-I’m okay.” But he looked like he didn’t believe me, eyebrows scrunching up and a frown forming on his lips. It was an odd angle to be looking at him from, me a few steps bellow him making the usual height difference even more exaggerated, but it was oddly comforting in a way. His wide frame seemed to curl around and over me like a protective barrier, and if I wasn’t so unsure about where we stood as friends, I would have buried myself in his chest by now, hoping those strong arms would wrap around me and keep me safe. 

Instead, I ended up just hunching in over myself, wrapping my own arms around me and trying to stop the shaking. Muriel made a disgruntled sound, but before I could look up to see his face, he twisted himself to wrap his arm fully around my shoulder, gently guiding me up the rest of the stairs to our apartment. It was a good compromise, I suppose, and his touch calmed me more than it should have.

Just as we had reached the final step, I heard police sirens coming from a distance, but it wasn’t long after that that I heard one last shot ringing out. I couldn’t help the flinch, or when instinct told me to turn and hide in the safest place I could find. I was surprised by how quickly his arms flew around me and held me tightly, but I couldn’t have been more grateful. 

“I’ve got you,” he whispered above me. 

"I'm sorry- I shouldn't- I just- I got scared and-" _I shouldn’t be crying it’s ridiculous I wasn’t even close to being hurt and I’m just a scared, weak little-_

"Hey, hey it's okay. It’s okay to be scared. I was scared too, but I’ll protect you." He says it so surely, like it was a fact I should have already known. And he doesn’t try and pull me away from his chest, just gently reaches down and lifts me up, carrying me to sit on the couch with him. Neither of us mentioned how this ends in me sitting in his lap with our arms wrapped around each other for a long while as I calmed down to the sound of his heartbeat.

He stayed close for the rest of the night, checking in on me with just a glance of those kind eyes and a small smile. We made grilled cheeses for dinner, lactose intolerance be damned, though in reality it was more him cooking and me just handing him the tub of butter or bread slices. He even let me eat on his bed, which he would never usually allow even himself to do, while we watch whatever Netflix recommend. We started out just sitting by one another, leaning against the wall beside his bed, but eventually my tired head just fell onto his shoulder, and his arm wrapped around me again. It was too easy, too comforting to just exist with him like this. A quick peak up at his face graced me with the beautiful sight of his blushing cheeks, eyes far too intensely focusing on the movie to be truly paying attention. 

I don’t really remember falling asleep, but I do wake up to Muriel’s grumbling at being woken up by the door of his bedroom being thrown open. Falling from where I had been laying on his chest, I flop onto the bed. I don’t quite have the energy to open my eyes yet, but I don’t need them to recognize the voice that I’m sure Muriel was also trying to ignore. 

“Well, it’s about damn time,” Asra said, far too smug for my liking. 


End file.
